Booklet

Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, Maria Martins, Isabelle Waldberg – three sculptors whose renown is today mostly limited to the places they lived and worked, in spite of their being among the most important figures of the surrealist movement. They moved in a network of some of the most important figures of their time, such as André Breton, Georges Bataille, Marcel Duchamp, and Alberto Giacometti, taking part in seminal exhibitions and often receiving wide recognition for their work. And yet today there is a need to reinscribe them into the story of art history. Our exhibition presents these artists together for the first time. In the entrance space, their works are seen in direct dialogue with each other. And, in the following exhibition spaces, their oeuvres are presented separately, even as the semi-transparent curtains dividing the sections allow viewers to catch impressions and connections between the artists’ bodies of work.

Audioguide #1


Isabelle Waldberg

1911 Born Margaretha Isabelle Maria Farner on May 10 in Oberstammheim in a German-speaking region of Switzerland.
1936 Moves from Zurich to Paris, where she befriends Alberto Giacometti.
1938 Waldberg is part of a circle of figures in or related to George Bataille’s secret society Acéphale, where she also meets her future husband Patrick Waldberg.wo sie auch ihren späteren Ehemann Patrick Waldberg kennenlernt.
1942–1945 Exile in New York; close exchange with numerous intellectuals and artists who have emigrated from Europe; creates her first Constructions; returns to Paris.
1947 Participates in the "Exposition internationale du surréalisme" at the Galerie Maeght, Paris.
1953 Separates from her husband; in the following decades, participates in numerous exhibitions at home and abroad; works as a curator and author.
1973 Appointed professor of sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
1990 Waldberg dies on April 10 in Chartres, France.

 

Isabelle Waldberg and Robert Lebel
Five sheets with sketches of masks,
etc. (all untitled):
1 a “Navajo” and “Hopi demi masque”
1 b “Eskimo tortue” / “Eskimo Turtle” and “Hopi”
1 c “Eskimo front bleu” / “Eskimo Blue Forehead” and “Eskimo grandes oreilles” / “Eskimo Big Ears”
1 d “Trône” [africain] / [African] “Throne”
1 e “Nouvelle Bretagne” / “New England” and “Masque mexicain albâtre” / “Mask Mexican Alabaster”
ca. 1942–1944
Colored pencil on paper
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

Isabelle Waldberg arrived in New York in the summer of 1942, living there in exile until 1945. She found in the city a large network of intellectuals she already knew. With her neighbors, fellow exiles Robert and Nina Lebel, Waldberg traveled through New England, making sketches of the indigenous cultural artifacts they found in museums there. Like many of the artists in her circle, she was fascinated by these objects and began to build a collection of them for herself. The formal legacy of other cultures remained an important source of inspiration for the sculptor throughout her life.

Audioguide #3

2 Construction ca. 1945
Beech wood sticks, white paint, wood
Collection Sabine Meiche

3 Le dernier rôdeur / The Last Drifter, 1945
Beech wood sticks, string, glue
Collection Mahoudeau

On her travels through New England, Waldberg saw nautical navigation charts made of knotted wooden sticks from the Marshall Islands, a group of islands in the western Pacific between Hawaii and Australia. Their native peoples used these charts to find navigable passages and avoid dangerous currents. For Waldberg, these objects were an important source of inspiration for her fragile Constructions. She created more than 40 of such pieces over the course of just a few years. After moistening the beech sticks and rendering them pliable, she would connect them using thin strings and glue. Today, in their completely dry state, these delicate structures exhibit a tension seemingly ready to snap at any moment.

Audioguide #4

4 Construction murale / Wall Construction, 1948
Painted iron
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

After the end of the Second World War, Waldberg returned to Paris with her son Michel, while her husband remained for a while in the U.S. In her letters to him from this time, she asks that he bring her beech branches back to France to create more of her Constructions. In the meantime, she begins to create the works out of bent iron rods. Having already taken part in important exhibitions of contemporary art in New York, she now showed as part of the important surrealist exhibition Exposition internationale du surréalisme at Galerie Maeght in Paris in 1947, alongside, among others, Maria Martins.

5 Construction / Konstruktion, 1943–1948 
Iron and wood
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

6 Suivi de ... / Followed by ..., 1958
Bronze
Fonds de dotation Jean-Jacques Lebel

Waldberg’s formal language changed in the 1950s. Some of the bronze sculptures he now created evoke associations with figurative forms. Suivi de ..., for example, is reminiscent of a striding figure. The graceful form is even more reminiscent of Waldberg’s works from previous years. From now on, her works become more voluminous and powerful.

7 La poseuse / The Poser, 1958
Painted bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

8 Agarien 1er / agarian 1, 1958
Bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

Audioguide #5
 

9 Le carcan / The Constraint, ca. 1960
Bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

Beginning in the 1960s, Waldberg created massive sculptures that clearly had no intent to please anyone but herself. As the sculptor would write in 1988: “People have often asked me why I don’t make something beautiful. First of all, I don’t want to do what they ask me. Secondly, I don’t know what is beautiful. Is it something pleasant, something round, something polished, something that shines? Beautiful perhaps, but for whom?”

10 L’étude pour l’écritoire / Study for a Writing Desk, 1962
Ed. 3, bronze
Fonds de dotation Jean-Jacques Lebel

11 Nu penché / Reclining Nude (also: La druse / The Druse II), 1962
Patinated plaster
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

12 Le palais rose / The Pink Palace, 1963
Patinated plaster
Collection Mahoudeau

13 La vague / The Wave, 1964
Patinated plaster
Collection Soizic Audouard

14 Sculpture (untitled), ca. 1965
Plaster
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

15 Sculpture pour / Sculpture for Michel, 1965
Ed. 3, painted bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

16 Glyptothèque ca. 1967
Bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

Waldberg’s works engage with fundamental anthropological themes and are full of allusions to history and literature. A series of sculptures which call to mind dwellings or enclosures, such as Glyptothèque, deal with the tension between volume and void. These works can appear to be ancient artifacts themselves, while also possessing a timeless character. After having grown up in modest circumstances, Waldberg, through her art practice and written work, became part of a group of the most important intellectuals active in post-war Paris.

Audioguide #7

17 Portrait de / Portrait of Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange, 1967
Bronze
Fonds de dotation Jean-Jacques Lebel

18 Portrait de / Portrait of Robert Lebel, 1967
Ed. 1, bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

19 Animal, 1968 
Cork, wood, patinated plaster, acrylic glass
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

20 Sculpture (untitled), 1969
Bronze
Collection Mahoudeau

21 Untitled, 1969
Steel point engraving on aluminum cut-out affixed to plexiglass
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

In 1969, Waldberg produced the cover illustration for G. B., ou un ami présomptueux – an homage to Georges Bataille, written by Waldberg’s friend Michel Fardoulis-Lagrange. The drawing, reminiscent of a technical diagram, depicts the outlines of a woman’s splayed legs, as does the steel engraving exhibited here, which was issued as a limited edition supplement to the book. Waldberg had known Bataille since before the war. She belonged to his “secret society” of artists and intellectuals, Acéphale, where she also met her husband Patrick Waldberg. Fardoulis-Lagrange also probably belonged to the group.

22 Atelier Rue Larrey, ca. 1970 
Gouache on paper
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

23 Three drawings (untitled), ca. 1970
Pencil, ink, and gouache on paper
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

24 Sketchbook, ca. 1970
With 19 gouaches on paper
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

25 Notebook, ca. 1970
With 15 gouaches on paper
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

26 Le couple ou Orant / The Couple or Praying Man, 1970
Ed. 3, bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

27 Agarien IV / Hagarian IV, 1970
Bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

28 La face visible / The Visible Face, 1972
Bronze
Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris,
Inv. AMVP 2854

Beginning in the 1950s, Waldberg created both naturalistic portraits of her friends as well as abstract portraits such as La face visible. The expressive bust is an example of one of her “inner portraits,” in this case of her long-time companion Robert Lebel. The work’s open eye seems to be both a “voracious” mouth attempting to devour the outside world and a gateway to injury. The bust’s other eye and mouth are protected by shield-like elements. The phase of the artist’s life in which this work was created was characterized by public recognition: Waldberg had numerous solo and group exhibitions and was receiving prizes and honors. In 1973, Waldberg was appointed as professor of sculpture, the first woman to hold the post, at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Here she once again built up a network, including the young students at the academy.

29 L’oiseau pilote / The Pilot Bird, 1973
Bronze
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

30 Delescluze descend vers le Château d’Eau / Delescluze Descends to the Château d’Eau, 1973
Bronze
Collection Mahoudeau

31 Mona-Lisa, 1974 
Plaster
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

32 La nature morte / Still Life, 1974
Bronze
Collection Samsovici - Gauthier

33 Portrait de Marcel Duchamp posé sur un échiquier avec deux pions et deux sculptures / Portrait of Marcel Duchamp on a Chessboard
with Two Pawns and Two Sculptures, 1958–1978
Bust: 1958, patinated bronze; two sculptures: ca. 1960s, bronze; iron negative holder belonging to Man Ray; two chess pieces; vintage Chinese chessboard 
Kunstmuseum Bern, Inv. Pl 81.008

In 1958, Waldberg produced a bust of Marcel Duchamp, who had been a close confidant of hers since before the war. She used one of the three bronze casts almost twenty years later in this unusual posthumous portrait, placing it askew atop an old Chinese chessboard, accompanied by two chess pieces, two bronze sculptures by Waldberg, and an iron support intended for drying negatives she got from Man Ray. Duchamp had been a passionate chess player who took part in four chess Olympiads. It was only after his death that Waldberg arranged these disparate objects into her tribute to the important artist.

Audioguide #6

34 Mausolée / Mausoleum, 1978 
Bronze 
Centre national des arts plastiques (France), 
Inv. FNAC 10079

35 Lugdus, 1978 
Bronze 
Centre national des arts plastiques (France), 
Inv. FNAC 10292

36 Le casque / The Helmet, 1978 
Plaster, patinated 
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

37 Cavalier zen / Zen Rider, 1979 
Patinated bronze 
Collection Sabine Meiche

38 La draisienne / The Draisienne, 1980 
Bronze 
Estate of Isabelle Waldberg

39 La meute / The Pack, 1980 
Bronze 
Centre national des arts plastiques (France), 
Inv. FNAC 10225

40 Two in One, 1984 
Black patinated bronze 
Fonds de dotation Jean-Jacques Lebel

41 Le radeau de la Méduse / The Raft of the Medusa, 1985 
Artist’s book 
Collection Sabine Meiche

Waldberg had also been active as an author since before the war. In 1985, her artistic pictorial analysis of Théodore Géricault’s 1819 painting, Le radeau de la Méduse was published in an edition of 100 copies. It includes an abstract relief embossed in paper, reflecting the composition and dynamics of the original painting.

Sonja Ferlov Mancoba

1911 Born Sonja Ida Ferlov on November 1 in Copenhagen.
Ab 1931 Studies at the School of Arts and Crafts and then at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen.
1936 Moves to Paris and studies at the École des Beaux-Arts; meets Alberto Giacometti.
1940–1945 Mancoba spends the war years in Paris, while her partner and, from 1942, husband Ernest Mancoba, an artist from South Africa, is held in a nearby internment camp.
1947 Sonja and Ernest Mancoba move to Denmark with their son; involvement with the artist group CoBrA.
1952 The Mancoba family leaves Denmark and returns to France; for nearly ten years, she produces no sculptures.
Ab 1962 Mancoba is able to produce the first bronze casting of one of her plaster sculptures; numerous exhibitions and awards follow.
1984 Mancoba dies on December 17 in Paris.

42 Levende grene / Living Branches, 1935 
Wood 
Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Inv. 2008/0074 

Mancoba spent the summer of 1935 on the island of Bornholm alongside several artist friends who studied with her in Copenhagen. She uses the setting to experiment with found natural materials. Even in these earliest known sculptures by the artist, the wit and interplay of abstract and figurative forms that will characterize her body of work are already evident.

Audioguide #8

43 To levende væsener / Two Living Beings, 1935 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

44 Fugl med unge / Bird with Young, 1935 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

Proximity and distance, familiarity and community—these are constant themes running through Mancoba’s oeuvre. An early example of this can be seen in this work, a clay model of which was also created on Bornholm, depicting the connection between a bird and its young with an extraordinary succinctness and clarity. The artist’s friend Lisbeth Hjorth is to thank for this work’s continuing existence, as she made the plaster cast of Mancoba’s clay original.

45 Fugl med unge / Bird with Young, 1935 
Plaster 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

46 Sculpture (untitled), 1938/39 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

47 Maskeskulptur / Mask Sculpture, 1939 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

48 Sculpture (untitled, also: Længsel / Longing), 1939 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

49 Maske (Krigens udbrud) / Mask (Outbreak of War), 1939 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

50 Maske / Mask (Krigens udbrud / Outbreak of War), 1939 
Plaster 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

This sculpture offers Mancoba’s response to the outbreak of the Second World War. The work has clear echoes of non-European mask traditions as well as objects from antiquity. As a child, the artist was already acquainted with the collection of African art and artifacts belonging to Carl and Amalie Kjersmeier in Copenhagen. From 1939 onwards, she and her future husband Ernest Mancoba would frequently visit the Musée de l’Homme in Paris and explored indigenous cultures. In Maske (Krigens udbrud), Mancoba’s unique visual language is already evident in the condensed form and almost timeless expressivity.

51 Sculpture (untitled, also: Sculpture 1940–1946), 1940–1946 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

From 1940 until the end of the war, Sonja’s future husband Ernest was held in the La Grande Caserne internment camp in Saint-Denis. Over the course of six years, which she spent living in extreme poverty in Paris, she created this striking work of sculpture. The condensed presence contained in its form perhaps also reveals the artist’s inner state of tension during the war years. The work appears static, abstract, and – due to its eye-like orifice – simultaneously organic. It is one of Mancoba’s most important works.

Audioguide #9

52 Maskeskulptur (Lille maske) / Mask Sculpture (Small Mask), 1948 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

53 Sculpture (untitled, also: Striving Towards the Light), 1949 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

54 Den lille nænsomme / The Little Gentle One, 1951 
Plaster 
Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Inv. 1994/0023

Audioguide #10

55 Den lille nænsomme / The Little Gentle One, 1951 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

After moving back to Denmark and giving birth to her son Wonga, Mancoba tried out new techniques. Back again on the island of Bornholm, she works for the first time with small pieces of clay, which she presses together onto the mold. This gives the surface of the work a softer, more organic appearance. For the artist, this work was just “a small, squat figure with one eye,” but its eye form was a development from the recent Sculpture 1940–1946. The surface treatment she uses here was a technique she had encountered before the war in the Paris studio of her neighbor Alberto Giacometti.

56 Sculpture (untitled), 1951 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

57 Sculpture (untitled), 1958 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

58 Mand / Man, ca. 1959 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

59 Daggry / Daybreak, 1959 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

60–63 Four paintings (untitled), 1960s 
Oil on canvas 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

64 Untitled, 1960s 
Ink and oil pastel on paper 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

65 Untitled, 1960s 
Collage 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

While at the beginning of her artistic career Mancoba created drawings and collages as accompanying studies for her sculptural work, from the 1960s onwards such graphic works became an independent mode of expression in her practice. She experimented with materials, colors, and superimpositions.

66 Le combattant / The Warrior, 1961 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

As the Mancoba family was subjected to constant “casual” racism in Denmark due to Ernest and Wonga’s skin color, they decided to return to France in 1951 and settle in the village of Oigny-en-Valois. No sculptures by the sculptor survive from an almost ten-year period around this time. With Le combattant, she made her return to large-format sculpture. Her visual language had become more figurative, as this Warrior clearly shows.

Audioguide #11

67 Stående mand / Standing Man, ca. 1962 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

68 Stille vækst (also: Croissance silencieuse / Quiet Growth), 1962 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

69 Effort commun / Communal Effort, 1963/64 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

In the 1960s, Mancoba’s works became more socially critical, with key themes such as solidarity and communal co-existence. One of her main works from this period occupies a space somewhere between the non-representational and the figurative. In it two figures appear united in a kind of embrace, supporting each other even as they leave their counterpart room to move.

Audioguide #2

70 Untitled, 1964 
Watercolor, torn and collaged paper, on corrugated cardboard 
SMK Statens Museum for Kunst Copenhagen, The Royal Collection of Graphic Art,
Inv. KKS1976-243 

Mancoba also deals with figurative and abstract elements that merge into animal figures and vegetal worlds in her graphic works. And here too, it is the otherworldly masks that particularly draw her attention and which she explores in various depictions.

71 Maske / Mask, ca. 1965 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

Sonja Ferlov Mancoba came into contact with non-European art and got in touch with African art and culture as a child. Following her studies, she immersed herself more and more in this subject and also introduced it to her fellow artists. In her late work in particular, it is the mask, that form transcending epochs and borders, to which she repeatedly returns to explore anew.

72 Solidarité / Solidarity (Hommage à Elise Johansen), 1966 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

“What really counts is not the sculptures, but the spirit of the community that you are trying to express. I would say that the things themselves are only a mediator for what you are looking for. The value of the works lies in the fact that they relate directly to life, help us to see more clearly, give us courage, and show us a way to cope with life. But the works are not life. They are a reflection of life.” Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, 1970

73 Élan vers l’avenir / Élan for the Future, 1966 
Plaster 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

74 Krigeren / Warrior, 1968 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

75 A l’écoute du silence / Listening to the Silence (Hommage à Steingrim Laursen), 1969 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

76 Sculpture (untitled), ca. 1970 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

77 Sculpture (untitled), ca. 1970 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

78 Maske og ribben / Mask and Ribs, 1970 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

79 Mask / Mask, 1970 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

80 Vogtere af vor arv / Guardians of Our Heritage, 1973 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

81 Vogtere af vor arv / Guardians of Our Heritage, 1973 
Plaster 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

82 Sculpture (untitled), ca. 1975 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

83 Maske (also: Table Mask or Birth of the Mask), 1965–1975 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

84 Lille sol / Little Sun, 1977–1978 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

85 De fire kontinenter / The Four Continents, 1978 
Plaster 
Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Inv. 1996/0024

86 Maske og figur / Mask and Figure, 1977–1984 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba 

“I am toying with the idea of doing a thing with masks from all periods and places and dealing with masks as forms of human expression. That is, to juxtapose the masks of Oceania and Africa etc. with the masks of the Middle Ages, the armored masks of the Renaissance in Europe and whatever else you find, helmets with a richness of expression.” 
Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, 1968

Audiogude #12

87 Untitled (Maske med hornøjne / Mask with Horn Eyes), 1983/84 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

88 Untitled (Maske med hornøjne / Mask with Horn Eyes), 1983/84 
Plaster 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

89 Stor Hjelm / Large Helmet, ca. 1984 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

90 Squelette de l’esprit / Skeleton of the Mind, 1984 
Bronze 
Estate Ferlov Mancoba

Maria Martins

1894 Born Maria de Lourdes Faria Alves on August 7 in Campanha, Brazil.
1924 Moves to Paris.
1926 Marries Brazilian diplomat Carlos Martins.
1934/35 Moves to Tokyo then Brussels; private lessons in sculpture.
Ab 1939 Moves to Washington D.C.; she becomes part of the circle of artists who have emigrated from Europe; participates in group and solo exhibitions.
1947 Martins is represented in the "Exposition internationale du surréalisme" at the Galerie Maeght, Paris.
Ab 1949 Moves to Rio de Janeiro; participates in the conception and organization of the first São Paulo Biennial, as well as in the founding of the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.
1956 Devotes more time to her writing and journalism.
1973 Martins dies on March 27 in Rio de Janeiro.

91 O guerreiro / The Warrior, 1940 
Iron 
Collection Carlos Ricardo Martins Ceglia 

O guerreiro stands out in particular among the works thematically linked to the Afro-Brazilian myths that would continue to strongly influence her later work. Maria Martins had no formal academic training in the arts. In Paris, she took lessons from the Ukrainian artist Catherine Barjansky, learned to work with wood and terracotta from the Belgian sculptor Oscar Jespers, and, in 1941, focused on the process of bronze casting with the Lithuanian sculptor Jacques Lipchitz in New York. The iron work O guerreiro, created a year earlier, testifies to Martins’ new tendency to use metal as an artistic medium. With its hammered form, welded seams and occasional iron nails, O guerreiro is experimental in its realization.

92 Study for Uirapirú, 1940s 
Ink on paper 
Private collection, Fortaleza, Brazil 

The Uirapuru, or musician wren, is a bird native to the Amazon rainforest, one who plays a central role in a myth from that region: the story of a man who transforms himself into a bird to be with the woman he loves. It is said that the Uirapuru enchants through its sound and not through its appearance. In Martins’ study for a sculpture – which she calls Uirapirú, slightly modified –an anthropomorphic body seems to flutter in the wind, as if dancing to the rhythm of a song. In her interpretation of the myth, however, the bird becomes a demon – a creature that beguiles and kills. As the artist herself put it: “He sings and lulls you to sleep in order to kill faster. He always kills.” 
The sculpture resulting from this study caused a stir in surrealist circles and beyond – perhaps this is the reason why the Museum of Modern Art in New York refused to purchase it in 1944.

93 Le guerrier / The Warrior, ca. 1943 
Bronze 
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, inv. MBA.2021.12.1

94 Amazonia by Maria, 1943 
Exhibition catalogue, Valentine Gallery, New York, with texts by Maria Martins and Jorge Zarur Collection Francis M. Naumann and Marie T. Keller, Yorktown Heights, New York

95 Glèbe-ailes / Earth Wings, 1944 
Bronze 
Private collection, Fortaleza, Brazil 

In Glèbe-ailes, Martins combines her Brazilian origins with modern Western sculpture and indigenous mythology. The bronze sculpture shows the interplay between nature and culture: an amorphous figure with a human head, angel-like wings, bull-like legs, and eagle claws oscillates between human, animal, and mythical creature. At the same time, the work reflects Martins’ experimental approach to molds and structures – a style characteristic of her organic-abstract hybrids. The title can be understood as a reference to her central motifs of change and transitions: from the mundane to the mythic, from the earthly to the heavenly, from the physical to the psychological. 

Audioguide #14

96 Ma chanson / My Song, 1944 
Bronze 
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, 
Inv. 1944.133 

In this phase of Martins’ oeuvre, her central themes – Afro-Brazilian myths, religious figures, gender dynamics, and sexuality – remain, but are expanded upon in a more modern, abstract formal language. This can be seen in Ma chanson, an almost graphic figure with a stylized female head resting atop a bronze base reminiscent of a thorn bush. The strands could symbolize intimacy and distance, attraction and repulsion. The rough, unsealed materiality of the sculpture is characteristic for Martins, revealing the influence of her studies in Japanese ceramic techniques from ten years prior. She produced several versions of Ma chanson, including in the form of a gold brooch. Part of her jewelry collection, the work is a link between her art and her role as a diplomat’s wife while also acting as a means of reaching a wider audience.

Audioguide #13

97 Maria 1946, 1946 
Portfolio containing nine etchings (four with aquatint and engraving, one with drypoint), one engraving, and a supplementary series of 19 collotype prints of sculptures Carlos Ricardo Martins Ceglia Collection

“I know that my goddesses and I know that my monsters / will always appear to you as sensual and barbaric. / I know that you would like to see in my hands reign / the immutable measure of eternal leagues.” This excerpt from Maria Martins’ poem Explanation is found in her portfolio Maria 1946, which she published that year in the context of her solo exhibition at the Valentine Gallery in New York. In it, she reflects on her origins and creative power –  embodied by goddesses and monsters, figures which are perceived differently depending on the cultural context. Martins recognizes these differences but refuses to bow to norms foreign to her: her art remains free. The other pages of the book bring together key works from her sculptural oeuvre, including in the form of an etching of The Impossible and Comme une liane. The latter refers to her artistic exchange and love affair with Marcel Duchamp. In 1946, he gave her his work Paysage fautif and a version of The Green Box in response, which contained a drawing of a heart with the inscription: “Please Do Not Throw This on Floor.”

Audioguide #16

98 The Impossible, after 1946 
Bronze 
Itaú Bank Collection 

The Impossible is one of Martins’ best-known works. Produced during a creative highpoint in New York, the sculpture combines Brazilian mythology and popular culture with the aesthetics of Western modernism. It depicts two bodies that seem to want to embrace each other, but whose connection remains tense. In place of heads, the beings have concave shapes made of fang-like tentacles which reach out toward each other. Martins thematizes the tension inherent to dual relationships – love and death, desire and destruction. This motif runs through her work, as can be seen, for example, in Hasard hagard or Ma chanson. Indeed, the process of creating The Impossible also reflects this fraught dynamic: between 1944 and 1949, Martins created at least three versions of the sculpture, always experimenting with the depiction of the towering bodies.

Audioguide #17

99 Sûr doute / Certain Doubt, 1947 
Bronze 
Collection Flavio-Shiró, Paris

100 Prometheus ou: Brûlant de ce qu‘il brûle / Prometheus or: Burning With What Burns Him, 1948 
Bronze 
Private collection, Fortaleza, Brazil

In this sculpture, Martins takes up the tragic story of Prometheus from Greek mythology: After the Titan has brought fire to mankind in defiance of Zeus, the king of gods punishes him by chaining Prometheus to a mountain where he is tormented by an eagle who eats from his regenerating liver every day. Martins’ bronze sculpture shows an upright, slender figure with oversized hands, whose long fingers merge with the flames blazing behind it. The fire is reminiscent of both branches and lianas and refers to the Amazon jungle – a recurring motif in Martins’ work. Lianas, an invasive species of vine nonetheless essential for the biodiversity of the tropics, act as a symbol of natural ambivalence for the artist. She transfers this fragile balance to her artistic exploration of the world.

Audioguide #15

101 Fatalité femme / Female Destiny, 1948 
Bronze 
Private collection, São Paulo, Brazil

102 Brouillard noir / Black Fog, 1949 
Bronze 
Private collection 

The sculpture Brouillard noir is reminiscent of a skeleton – the scaffolding that holds the body together. With the reduced, bone-like structures in this work, Martins distances herself from the organic even as she emphasizes the foundational elements of the corporeal. The work was created in 1949, during a phase in which Martins returned to Rio de Janeiro. There she played a formative role in the art scene, participating in the founding of the Museu de Arte Moderna and supporting the São Paulo Biennial. Brouillard noir, which can be read as an attempt to give stability to her ever-shifting life, is like an sarcastic reference to transience: at the end of all metamorphoses, only the bones on which the body is based remain.

103 O Canto do mar / The Song of the Sea, 1952 
Polished bronze 
Collection Carlos Ricardo Martins Ceglia 

With its softly flowing, shiny golden forms, the sculpture O canto do Mar seems to give form to the intangible nature of sound – such as the gentle sound of the sea. After her return to Brazil, she faced a new generation of artists: the Grupo Ruptura and Grupo Frente were the new face of abstract art, but Martins’ figurative formal language could find no place in this world. This tension is reflected in O canto do Mar: the sculpture remains true to Martins’ aesthetic, but its smooth, shiny surface makes it a clear outlier among her earlier works – a silent struggle between tradition and change.

Audioguide #18

104 Ohne Titel (O Satori / The Awakening), 1955 
Ink and graphite on paper 
Private collection, Fortaleza, Brazil 

The drawing O Satori served as a study for the 1959 sculpture Rito dos Ritmos / The Rite of Rhythms, which Oscar Niemeyer commissioned for the Alvorada Palace in Brasília. The title O Satori comes from Japanese Buddhism and refers to a moment of sudden enlightenment – a concept that Martins studied intensively during her stays in Japan. Both the drawing and the sculpture connect the interior and exterior through abstract, organic forms that stretch outwards and at the same time condense vertically. They were created in Martins’ last years as a sculptor. Until her death in 1973, Martins remained an important figure in the art world through her roles as cultural attaché and writer. Since the documenta 13 in 2012 her work has once more been recognized in Europe, as for example at the Venice Biennale.